WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign filed a lawsuit against the Democratic Party on Friday after it was temporarily barred from accessing a trove of information about potential voters as punishment for improperly accessing data compiled by the campaign of rival Hillary Clinton.
The reaction of the Democratic National Committee to the data breach, the depth of which was debated by all involved, thrust into the open longstanding suspicions among Sanders and his supporters that the national party is unfairly working to support the candidacy of its front-runner.
"Clearly, in this case, they are trying to help the Clinton campaign," said Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver.
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz responded that "the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data," rejecting Weaver's effort to portray the breach as the fault of a software glitch and a small group of rogue staffers.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, sought the "immediate restoration" the campaign's access to the voter database. It argued that without the database, the campaign would lose approximately $600,000 in donations a day.
"The loss of DNC support could significantly disadvantage, if not cripple, a Democratic candidate's campaign for public office," the lawsuit said.
